December/January, 4 hour written open book exam.
The exact week, date and time of the exam will be announced later. The regular exam will take place in January.The make-up/re-exam will take place in February/March. Make-up/re-exams require registration

Aids

Open Book, Written and Electronic Aid is permitted

Duration

4 Hours

Course content

Course Content Contemporary approaches to the study of branding and consumer responses to branding will be presented and discussed in light of recent advances in brain science. The combination of psychology and modern neuroscience – also neuromarketing and consumer neuroscience – will be used comprehensively throughout the course. Specifically, the role of emotions in consumer choice is in focus, as well as the basic mental/neural mechanisms underlying motivation. The course provides an opportunity for students to (a) deepen their understanding of how brands work at the basic psychological and neuronal levels, (b) learn about the effects of brands on perceptual, cognitive, affective and behavioural levels, and (c) learn to think biological perspectives into advertising and marketing strategies.

A large portion of the course will cover insights into and methods from cognitive neuroscience that are important for understanding brands and their effects of consumer psychology and behaviour. Topics such as attention, memory, arousal, emotions, preference formation and decision making are covered in depth. In particular, the course will focus on exploring and expanding the knowledge about the brain mechanisms for how brands affect preference, cognition and action. In the class, focus will also be on international and cross cultural advertising.

Course progression The BMC course will start with a presentation of basic cognitive neuroscience of attention, emotion, memory and decision-making. From this foundation, students will reflect on the impacts of this knowledge on the knowledge about branding, and on traditional models of branding. Finally, students will be presented with the most recent experimental studies from consumer and marketing science, and the neuroscience of branding, and will be challenged to provide a comprehensive model of branding that incorporates traditional and novel neuroscience.